Nancy Bartholomew

The best stories are the ones that crop up unexpectedly.

Mert was sitting in the cabin  Saturday morning assembling the new garden cart when she suddenly stopped what she was doing, looked up and said "Did I tell you I saw a coyote walking through the subdivision a couple of days ago?"

I figured she was kidding.  It was early morning.  I hadn't had enough coffee and Mert is bad to fun you .  But she wasn't  kidding.  She was serious...See?

Around here, we call that a "Serious as a Heart Attack" look.  This, too...When Mert starts pointing her screwdriver, you know she's fixing to give you the straight skinny on the situation.

But, I thought, we live in a fairly large city.  We live in the Southeast.  Coyotes don't roam the streets of Greensboro.  Do they?

"Mert," I said. "What makes you think it was a coyote?"

She shook her head, acknowledging that this did indeed sound incredible.  "I heard on the news they've been moving into North Carolina," she said.  "And I don't know, he just moved like a coyote." 

It begs the question, don't you think?

"Mert, how do coyotes move?"

Mert's into it now..."Well," she says, laughing.  "They just, you know, slink.  Creepy, creepy, creeping along."

"How was that again?" I said, raising the camera and hitting the flash button for good measure.

"You know!  They just hunker down low and...Bookity, bookity, bookity...right on down the road!"

So there you have it.  Coyotes in Greensboro.  Film at 11.